was led into a deep wood, but Hypocrisy into a wide field full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell and rose no more. Hypocrisy is but another name for moral and spiritual suicide. As we read the Gospels, we never come upon a word of wrath from the Lord Jesus Christ against the sinner, but what denunciation of the hypocrite is there: “ Whited sepulchres—full ■of dead men’s bones, blind leaders of the blind, ye fools and blind, ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers!” Of course, God is not mocked. He is wiser than men, and is never taken by surprise when the hypocrite reveals himself for what he really is. “ For Whatsoever a Man Soweth That Shall He Also Reap” No real tiller of the soil ever ignores God’s great law of sowing and reaping. If he desires to reap “ the harvest’s golden corn,” he plants corn; if he wants the life-giving wheat, he puts the grain of wheat into the earth. The harvest will be exactly like the seed planted. The good earth, from the day it was created by the hand of God, has brought forth “ the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself.” A Burbank may insert foreign stock, and develop a new species, but, given time, the plant will revert to its original type. The seed will bear its own proper fruit and ho other. As the husbandman sows in the field, in the spring, so shall he reap in his bins in the autumn. The seed is in fact the harvest in embryo—of its exact similitude'. This is the perfect figure for the re lation between the moral acts of a man’s life and the harvest, or the retribution of God which will follow. Eventually, everyone sits down to the “banquet of consequences” of his deeds. The preposition “ for” in this verse conveys the idea of “because,” furnish ing the reason for the “whatsoever” that follows, and indicating that “ God will not be mocked” because of this unalter able spiritual law of cause and effect. This proverb was in common use in secular conversation and literature. Cicero employed it, and we read in Aristotle: “ But thou sowedest these things in disgraceful fashion and didst reap an ill harvest of them.” Solomon included it among the Proverbs': “He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity” (Prov. 22:8). And Hosea declared, “ For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hos. 8:7). Jesus incorporated this thought in His preach ing: “ Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” (Matt. 7:16-18). Our present life is but a time of sowing. Every act is a seed sown, which O C T O B E R , 1 9 5 2
will bear a certain harvest. Our deeds never stop with themselves but go on and on to the final reaping. Each per formance has a product of its own, and all are the by-products of our entire lives. We may wish that a deed once committed might end then and there, but it is not so. The future harvest is indissolubly linked with our conduct here and now. What we do now will determine our account. Our future state will not merely follow our present condition, but will be the product of it. As the seed is to the harvest, so is this life to that which is to come. “ Soweth” conveys the idea of “ its own resources” ; and “ that [shall he also reap]” means literally “this and nothing else.” If we sow tares, we shall not reap wheat. Whatever we wish to garner in the future we must put into the ground now. The retribution will be fully ade quate, perfectly just. Our seed (of thoughts, words and deeds) may seem very insignificant, but they will expand into a great harvest. Of course this is not by any means a discussion of salvation by faith or by works; it is simply the setting forth in two terse verses an immutable spiritual law. It therefore rests with us what kind of seed we will sow. The choice that was given our first parents in the Garden of Eden has come down to us. Our wills are ours—to make them His. “ For He That Soweth Unto His Own Flesh Shall of the Flesh Reap Corruption” Here are the two kinds of soil: our own flesh, and God’s Spirit. Note the capitalization of the word “ Spirit” in dicating a reference to the Holy Spirit Himself. Both the seed and the soil are im portant. The parable of the sower in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew has been called, “ The parable of the soil,” be cause it appears to give more emphasis to the soil than to the seed. It contains such descriptive phrases as “ rocky places, the wayside, among thorns, and good ground,” all of which refer to the soil. This verse in Galatians too deals par ticularly with the soil. One has stated truly, “ In moral husbandry, good soil must be chosen.” .Certainly there is as great difference between these kinds of soil as between life and death: “His own flesh, the Spirit.” Dr. James Smith has written of this matter: “ To sow to the flesh is to sow rotten seed in a poisonous soil. Nothing can come from it but corruption. We sow to the flesh when we sow to our carnal, self-pleasing, worldly lives. There is nothing in this for the honor of God, so it will rot like a lifeless carcass. To sow to the Spirit is to sow to the re vealed will of God that which is well pleasing to Him. Then the fruit of the Spirit will appear.”
The flesh is bad; it cannot bring forth good fruit. “ That which is born of the flesh is flesh . . . So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” (John 3:6; Rom. 8 :8.) Paul affirms, “When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our mem bers to bring forth fruit unto death” (Rom. 7:5). And his own personal tes timony was, “ For I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. 7:18). Sowing to the flesh does not only mean the life of gross carnality, but it covers all living and working on a per fectly natural and unspiritual plane. It is a mere animal life without regard to God, which can only result in an evil harvest. The rendering, correctly given in the American Standard Version as “his own flesh” shows the utter self-centeredness of the flesh-life. One’s own flesh is only a small part of the great anti-spiritual world called “ the flesh.” “ For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.” All earthly created things are touched by dissolution, and in “the flesh” it is very apparent. In Philippians 3:19, Paul refers to the enemies of the cross of Christ as those “who mind earthly things” and states concerning them, “whose end is de struction,” whereas in Romans 8:21 R.V., we read: “ The creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of cor ruption into the liberty of the glory of children of God.” Our attention is called to the fact that the use of the term corrupt tion instead of destruction implies that such destruction is not arbitrary—not a deliberate, planned punishment for fleshly-mindedness, but that it is rather its natural consequence. “ God sending His own Son in the like ness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh . . . We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom 8:3,12-14). “ But He That Soweth Unto the Spirit Shall o f the Spirit Reap Eternal Life” There will be a lovely harvest for the life lived “ unto the Spirit.” To live unto Him is to live under His guidance and influence, to be utterly devoted to Him and to be helpful to others. Those who thus live will receive “ an hundredfold now in this time . . . and in the world to come eternal life” (Mark 10:30). “ And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof” (Gal. 5:24 R.V.). It is not an easy life. It is taking up (Continued on Page 28) Page Eleven
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